February 2002

Salvage squad tonight - Mon 25

That engine had not been started for 20 years, clean the fuel filter and away it went.

reminded me of a Woody Allen film, where, in the 23rd century he finds an old VW beetle that has been stood for 300 years and it to starts first time - not even a flat battery.

Alex. Read more

James

To be fair, it was only 200 years... (pedants 'r' us)
The moment I remember was when they bring him round with chocolate fudge cake, and he protests that he only eats health food. "But this is health food..."

Peter Stone

I have a Nissan Micra NCVT that has done 15k miles. The automatice box is now refusing to behave properly. Does anyone know if this is a common fault ? Read more

Lee H

Peter Stone wrote:
>
> update: called Nissan who then told me that I can only speak
> to my dealer. They refuse to answer any technical problems
> from the public.

If they won't answer queries from the public, why not call again and tell them you're someone else - technician at a dealership, journalist, vicar, transport minister or spin doctor.

I can fully understand why they want nothing to do with the public, after all, we're just the losers who ultimately pay their wages, why bother?

Lee.

markymarkn

Found a definitive guide to the shotgun rule - the rule for claiming the front seat of a car.


The Shotgun Rules


Very funny.
This should sort out many a problem with my mates and who sits in the front on the trip to the pub!

M. Read more

The Real Bogush

Try:

The Shotgun Rules

Mark (Brazil)


Ok, its now official, the Brazilians are *weird*. I was watching this on television yesterday.

I am sure that you are aware of children's programs such as Sesame Street. In these progrmas they have a bit where they have the "letter of the day" for example "b".

What happens is a picture of a bat will come on the television and a chorus of childrens voices will say "bat" as the word displays. With me ?

Right, there is a television station here called "h". Kind of an MTV for younger audiences.

So yesterday's advert, to be thought of in the same way as the Sesame Street "Letter of the Day" thing above.

Cute Hawk flies in front of the television camera and holds, in middle screen, flying towards us

................cue kids chorus

Little hawk flies next to it

................cue kids chorus (son)

Large jet appears, sucks mother hawk into engine, explosion of blood guts and feathers, little hawk starts crying at loss of his mother.

................cue kids chorus (orphan) Read more

Marcus

All day they have discussing this subject on radio 2, apparently the Govt wants to fit every vehicle with a Black box so that its movements can be tracked ( by satellite ) and you will recieve an invoice every month related to the amount of time you have been sitting in a traffic jam ? ? ?

I can only assume it is a cruel wind-up intended to deflect the spotlight from Mr Byers who has been telling fibs........

does anyone know otherwise ? Read more

Brian

Bogush
Why indeed?.
A fifth terminal at Heathrow, extra runways at Gatwick and Stansted, is only going to attract traffic (air and road) plus development (including housing for thousands of airport workers, plus their families with school runs) to the places where there is already high population density and inadequate services.

Mark (Brazil)


This is not an unusual occurrence out here. However, this time it was someone I knew. He was driving to the airport to travel for a meeting in Rio. His daughter was dropping him off.

Uma tentativa de seqüestro-relâmpago terminou com um assaltante e um refém mortos na Zona Sul de São Paulo, hoje cedo. Ladrões tentaram seqüestrar um homem e sua filha que estavam em um carro.

Uma perseguição policial começou na Avenida Washington Luiz e na Avenida Guarapiranga o carro em que estavam os ladrões bateu. Houve tiroteio com a polícia. Um dos ladrões e o homem seqüestrado morreram. Um soldado foi ferido e acabou morrendo mais tarde no hospital. A refém também ficou ferida . Segundo ela, os ladrões atiraram na cabeça de seu pai e no joelho dela.

Dois assaltantes fugiram.

A "lightening-kidnap" attempt ended with a kindapper and a hostage dead in the South Zone of Sao Paulo early today. "Villains" tried to kidnap a man and his daughter who was in the car.

A police chase started in Avenida Washington Luiz with Avenida Guarapiranga when the villains car crashed. A shoot=out wiht the polioce happened. One of the villains and the kidnapped man died. One soldier was injured and died later in hospital. The daugher was also injured. It seems that the kidnappers hot the father in the head and the daughter in the knee.

Two assailants escaped.



Going back to what Growler and Ian wrote recently, especially something Growler mentioned.

You cannot escape once you are kidnapped, although maybe you will live. The only practical tactic is avoidance.

Don't drive a routine route at a regular time, don't wear jewellry, don't drive a flash car, don't leave your doors unlocked, don't allow your car to get boxed in, don't drive in bad or uninhabited areas (although this one was in the centre of town), do pay attention to your surroundings, do pay attention to people around or near you, if in doubt go another way, don't stop at the side of the street and above all else, if you are kidnapped in South America, hope like hell that the police don't show up.

You cannot stop yourself being kidnapped, you can just make yourself a less attractive or more difficult proposition than the next man.

I will dig out the kidnap statistics, as I remember it is something like one every 45 minutes in Sao Paulo alone.

Mark. Read more

Brill

Viva à liberdade!

St.

Graham Sherlock

My wife is the reasonably happy owner of a 2001 (April) Octavia 2,0. I enjoy driving it myself as well, however, after the appearance of the oil level warning light, I was a little non-plussed. After topping up, a quick visit to the oil filler cap was confirmed with emulsified oil. Aha! thought I, head gasket. This was backed up by an Honest John e-mail reply. At the dealer, they hadn't seen it before but asked me to do a mileage per re-fill count. At the moment, it's doing roughly a pint of oil per 1000 miles. Shurely shome mishtake officer.

Anybody else met this problem
Ta very much. Read more

Pete

" At the dealer, they hadnt seen it before "
Wish I had a shilling ( or Euro ) for every time I've heard that one!

Octavia, good choice, wish I could afford one.
Rgds.

chas

Hi

On behalf of a classic car enthusiast colleague , I`m attempting to get hold of the actual wiring diagram ( showing the wiring of the internal components) for a 1960`s Smiths electronic rev counter ( either positive or negative earth)

Can anyone help at all ?

Thanks

Chas Read more

Mark (Brazil)

Not really help, perhaps a starting point for further investigation....

www.gower-oaks.co.uk/smithother3.htm

They sell new ones with wiring diagrams, so it may be worth asking.

chris eglinton

Does anyone have any comments to make on the 1.4 Micra for use as an every day run arround.

Reliability, ease of driving, etc.

Thanks guys.

Chris. Read more

Andy Bairsto

A good friend of mine in th UK swears by them I think he is on his second and has absolutely no trouble his main travel is a daily 25mile city commute,I have been in it and it is really a ok small car.

Adam

Recently I saw an add for a new 143 BHP Seat Leon in an advert from a Euro importer. (Diesel Car Feb 02).

Can anyone tell me whether this is a factory fitted chip change, an importer chip change or whether this is a standard car offered in Spain but not here.

Also, how different is the injection system design on the 110 (and therefore possibly this 143) to the newer PD systems. Read more

Honest John

I drove a Leon TDI PD150 four wheel drive last Summer. But it's LHD only.

HJ